July 29, 2005

Blackwell Storm Spotters are always ready for extreme weather with their mobile weather stations. The truck on the right has a cabled Weather Monitor II, the center vehicle has an Interceptor Weather Platform using a cabled Weather Monitor II, lightning tracker, and wireless Internet radar, and the white truck has a wireless Vantage Pro2 and wireless Internet radar. All three have ham radio and city communications radios, and APRS tracking devices.

Blackwell, OK, likes to call itself “America’s Hometown.” It boasts a lovely climate, a smack-dab-in-the-middle-of-the-midwest location, a vibrant Native American community, strong industry, and about 7,500 particularly nice residents. Among them are 15 Storm Spotters. That’s a pretty good concentration of Storm Spotters! To put it in perspective: there are as many Storm Spotters as police officers in Blackwell! Why, you may ask, (even though you did notice that “OK” up there in the first sentence)?

Back on May 25, 1955, the east side of Blackwell was destroyed by an F-5 tornado. On May 26, 1955, the city government started a very proactive practice of storm spotting. This proactive approach to emergency management got Blackwell, along with the storm prediction center and the National Severe Storm Laboratory, featured in a Discovery Channel documentary “The Science of Tornados.”

Since then, Blackwell’s Storm Spotters have been ready to go on a moment’s notice. Their readiness was tested very recently. Early in the morning on the July 3th weekend, every Blackwell Storm Spotter was awake and watching the weather data as several storms approached Blackwell.

“As forecast offices started to discuss the atmospheric changes,” wrote Spotter John Utech, “I shot out emails to every spotter that they needed to be ready for that evening.”

“I also called into WBBZ , the local AM news-talk radio station. I knew it was very important to warn the many campers and water enthusiasts out for the holiday weekend that there was a strong possibility of very severe weather after dark.”

John was right. At about 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, the first major storm hit the area, followed by “the kicker” which hit at around 12:15 a.m. on the 4th.

“When the second storm hit, there were three Storm Spotters, equipped with Davis weather instruments, spread across eight miles between the severe storm and the Kay county line just west of the city of Blackwell. The storm was moving east but became a ‘right turner’ as it approached Kay County. As it moved south at a speed of 20 mph, it lined up with the western border of Kay County and then turned to the east, formed a bow echo, and suddenly sped toward Blackwell at 50 mph. That is when I started recording wind gusts of 80 and 85 mph, and sustained winds of 73 mph. Spotters Mickey Phillips and Brett Shipman started getting winds of 90, 95 and then 102 mph with sustained winds of 82 mph.”

The Spotters were able to warn citizens quickly by way of NOAA Weather and the National Weather Service in Norman. Residents across Kay County and campers at lakes and campgrounds were able to take safety precautions.

Blackwell’s devoted Storm Spotters didn’t go home to bed when the winds finally calmed. Instead, they conducted an immediate damage survey of the city. Damage included power outage throughout the entire city, downed trees, and a toppled communications tower (rated to withstand 112 mph winds). But not a single injury, thanks to the speedy warnings of the NWS from reports of the Spotters.

John notes that his team was particularly effective because they have the best of equipment: Davis! (How’d you guess?)

“When I started to design the Scout (the weather station on the pickups in the photo above) and the Interceptor (on the red car in the middle),” John wrote, “I knew that these designs would be used by Storm Spotters. I was also aware that more and more of the National Weather Service forecast offices around the country prefer ‘measured’ readings instead of ‘estimated’ readings. The instruments were going to be placed in the nasty environment known as Tornado Alley. They had to be tough, affordable, dependable, provide a very quick response time, and most of all, accurate.

“So where would I find instruments that were going to be the absolute best for the money? One day, as I looked at the Storm Prediction Center’s building, I noticed a weather station on the top of the building. I discovered it to be a Davis. I went to the Davis web site, saw the options available, and the decision was made.”

Blackwell’s Storm Spotters aren’t the only Davis weather station users in town. “If you notice on the Blackwell E.O.C. in the background of the photo,” John notes, “you can see a Vantage Pro proudly functioning, everyday, every year, without fail. It has defied everything that Mother Nature has thrown at it! The City of Blackwell also uses a Davis Weather Wizard for mosquito fogging. The fogging has to be done on a vehicle traveling less than five miles an hour. The city truck’s speedometers won’t read that low so they mounted the Wizard to gauge the truck’s speed, as well as the weather readings required by the Health Department and the EPA for insecticide dispersal.”

Spot on, guys!

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